The Space Between Us
by GatesKeeper
Summary: [Destiel] When Team Free Will goes to investigate a series of mysterious deaths, they discover that some magic prevented the victims from getting near their loved ones in the days before their accidents. When the same phenomenon separates Dean from Sam and Cas, it adds extra pressure to the case. But is this just another monster or is something larger at play in this sleepy town?
1. Chapter 1

"So, why these victims?" Dean asks as soon as their trio leave the hospital and Luke Alvez's bedside. He's probably using more hand sanitizer than is strictly necessary, but no way is he gonna risk getting bronchitis or some shit from this case—especially since Cas had made the decision to give up his mojo for good rather than return to Heaven.

While seeing his friend eat and sleep with the rest of them and finally call the bunker "home" has put to rest some nameless fear inside him, that didn't mean his healing powers weren't missed on occasion. He even had to eat a vegetable every now and again since Cas had informed them that he could no longer clear out Dean's arteries every month like he'd used to do as an angel. To be honest, Dean would probably be more willing to eat healthier if Sam didn't always get a stupid smirk on his face whenever he ordered a side salad instead of onion rings. Little bitch.

It's a strange case for sure. Sam's internet alerts had first informed them of a sudden uptick in depths in a small town in Idaho a few days ago and it had seemed like enough for the restless hunters to check out even if there wasn't much to go on. But after talking to the victims' loved ones, a pattern clearly emerged.

Luke Alvez, the father that they had just interviewed, described in barely coherent sentences how, for a week or so leading up to his two-year-old's death, he hadn't been able to get anywhere near his son. The enforced separation had started at about a foot but escalated to the point he couldn't be in the same room as Ricky.

He'd been having a babysitter take care of the toddler—claiming that he was sick—but after she had gone home for the day, a fire had broken out and he hadn't been physically capable of going to his son's crib to get him out. Instead, he had stayed within sight of his crying—and eventually, dying—son, not moving until a firefighter came and forced him outside. Dean winces at the memory of the man's second-degree burns.

"So far, this monster or spell has gone after a couple that was married for 49 years, two sisters who were home-schooled together as kids and pretty much were each other's only support system, and a still-grieving widower, who by all accounts, completely isolated himself and his son after his wife died," Sam says, as soon as all three men have piled into the car. Dean recognizes that voice. His brother's not just going through the facts, but clearly working through some theory. "Given that, these don't seem like the kind of people who would be singled out for a curse, right? They just didn't interact with the rest of the community enough to piss anyone off."

"So, you think it's after the bond then? Some sort of monster that feeds off personal connections like djinn feed off dreams—or fears?"

Sam shrugs, "It's one avenue we should look into."

"Have anything to add, Cas?" Dean asks, meeting the ex-angel's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Sam's logic seems sound," he acknowledges, tilting his head.

"But…?"

Cas sighs, "But nothing. I agree with Sam. I was just wondering if, given that information, we might consider handing the case over to someone else. And then I figured it would probably be wasting my breath."

"Why the hell would we do that?" Dean says, turning half-way in his seat until Sams mutters, "Watch the road."

"It's a small town, Dean," Cas gives him a look equal parts fond and frustrated. "Generations of the same family still live here. High school sweethearts have gotten married and stayed married. But it's not going after everyone. Only the ones that, as Sam has pointed out, are the most co-dependent on each other."

"Yeah…'You jump, I jump, Jack,' that whole schtick. So…?"

"I've been watching humanity for much of creation, Dean, and in all that millennia, there has _never_ been any two people more willing to upset the grand scheme of things for each other as the two of you. Or have you forgotten one or two apocalypses?"

"He's got a point, Dean," Sam murmurs, rubbing his hands over his slack-covered knees. And, yeah, maybe he does. But they're already out here, people are dying, and he's never been the kind who could leave a hunt unfinished.

Dean remembers a moment more than ten years back when Cas was still "Castiel" sometimes, and his low growling voice had said, "Whatever I ask, you seem to do the exact opposite." He wonders if the man in the backseat does, too, because at that moment, he rolls his eyes in a very human gesture. It is, simultaneously, a testament to how much things never change—and how much they do.

"So…," Dean asks the car, preparing to take the upcoming left. "We going to the coroner's office next or what?"

-oOo-

"Most of the injuries are as you would expect," Dr. Cameron says, pulling the sheet back to reveal Bethany McCarthy's body. She had suddenly lurched in front of a car during rush hour traffic last Wednesday, the damage from the impact obscuring what had recently been a pretty face.

"Most?" Sam focuses on the word, pulling out his notebook and a pen.

The doctor hesitates, but only briefly. "There are some marks on her ribs that don't appear consistent with a car accident…They almost look like—words?"

He seems startled by the somewhat excited look on the men's faces but obliges them by putting the scans he took earlier up on the computer screen. "She had liver problems when she was younger, according to her medical records. Her sister, Tiffany, actually donated part of hers. However, it seems unlikely that those surgeries should have caused…well, that-" he explains, jabbing a finger at the lines.

Cas puts his face entirely too close to the monitor. "I can't read this language," he murmurs, with a tilt of his head, which worries Dean. Cas can read _every_ language.

"Did the other bodies have it too?" Dean asks, purposefully drawing the man away so that Sam and Cas have time to discuss whatever it is without being overheard. The doctor nods, leading him over to Thomas Haggerty's body; his face is dotted with age spots and wrinkle lines, his expression almost peaceful and not at all reminiscent of someone who died choking on a hotdog while his wife, a nurse, had been helpless to prevent it. Behind him, Dean hears the click of a cellphone camera.

He gives only a cursory examination of Ricky, stomach always a little uneasy when it came to kids and trusting the doctor to have spotted any other anomalies.

Dean requests copies of all the scans when he senses Sam and Cas are wrapping up, leaving Dr. Cameron with his business card, "In case you notice anything else," and probably more questions than when they arrived.

-oOo-

"So, fill me in," Dean says a half-hour later, after the three of them are seated in a diner booth. The attractive waitress had been all bright smiles as she took their order, hanging around a bit longer than was strictly necessary—but at last, she had gone to fetch two normal burgers and a Portobello-mushroom burger for Sammy, who had been playing with the idea of going vegetarian. "Writing on the ribs…So is that angels? Are we dealing with an actual rogue Cupid this time?"

"There's some glamor on the bones that's stopping me from reading what it says," Cas says, slightly frustrated. "But I have some ideas on how to get past it."

"Regardless," the ex-angel sighs, long fingers splayed out on the paper placement in front of him. "I don't think there are any Cupids left to go rogue."

"Meaning, what…? People are just gonna stop finding their soulmates or whatever?"

Sam shakes a sugar packet into his coffee but looks interested.

"Cupids never had anything to do with soulmates," Cas shakes his head, resolutely. "Their job was mostly setting up people who weren't naturally inclined to fall in love, like your parents, but whose coupling was needed for the sake of the grand design. Soulmates are more…part of the symmetry of nature. A person—or people—whose essence has the perfect resonance with yours. It's not guaranteed that you'll meet or that you'll form a romantic relationship if you do. It's like a puzzle where two pieces fit, but you could match them the wrong way or not try to put them together at all."

"And what about angels?" Sam asks, with one eyebrow raised. "Do they have soulmates?"

"They don't have _souls,_ for starters," Cas reminds him. "Although I might have one now that I am human. I hadn't really thought about it."

"Huh," Dean says, not willing to put much thought into his pseudo-date-rapey conception or the idea that Cas might have a matching puzzle piece out in the world somewhere when they'd finally gotten him to realize he belonged _here,_ with them.

"If it's not angels, what else writes on bone?" Dean questions, once the waitress had finished setting down their plates, accepting the older Winchester's wink with a blush.

"Some demons," Cas lists off. "Minor gods, witches."

"Of _course_…Why is it always witches?"

Cas hums in pleasure around his burger. "I still think a demon is the most likely option."

This is a sentence that should make no normal person feel better in the slightest, but in Dean's case, it kinda does.


	2. Chapter 2

Deciding on sleeping arrangements for three grown men in a room with two queen-sized beds and no couch is as awkward as it always is. But Sam always has his Sasquatch-ness in his favor, so Dean tries not to grumble much about having to share. Cas always seems to stay up late on these nights anyway to give Dean the privacy of falling to sleep by himself; he probably knows the nights they did retire at the same time, the older Winchester spends a few extra hours with his body in strained alertness, listening to the concert of breathing in the room and fighting an unnatural urge to toss and turn.

He is just used to having his own space back at the bunker is all, he thinks, as he arranges a couple of the motel's excess pillows into a barrier lining the middle of the bed. His eyes drift close, holding on to the last image they saw, of Cas flipping though a few research books with a halo of lamplight around his head…

-oOo-

Dean almost punches the alarm clock off the motel nightstand attempting to reach his ringing phone. He barely opens one eye to see that it is 3:30 in the morning. "What'isit?" he grumbles through a sleepy fog.

"Agent Seaver?" The voice of Police Chief Montgomery cracks on the other end of the line.

Dean reluctantly sits up. "Yes," he says, much more coherently, looking over at where Cas is curled up like a spoon. On the few occasions when he had to sleep as an angel, he was always stiff as a board—even if he did snore sometimes. As a human, he sleeps folded in on himself—the rest turning him into someone younger and, somehow, more touchable.

Dean gets up to pace because, obviously, his mind is still sleep-addled.

"It's Luke Alvez," the man on the other end of the line admits, tiredly. "He's just committed suicide."

Dean blinks, surprised but not surprised by this news. "We'll be right there," he says over his brother's irritated gasp as the pillow Dean threw collides with his head.

-oOo-

"You think Cas will be mad we left him behind?" Sam says, flashing his badge to the officer outside Room 109 and being nodded in.

"Nah. He's probably gotten only a couple of hours of shut-eye and I doubt that this will give us much. Better if he can wake up and work on the bone thing." Besides, he notes, there is something nostalgic—and yes, easier—about having just his brother at his side. They move around each other like clockwork, something he and Cas do only in the middle of a battle. And it may have taken years, but Dean and Sam mostly say what they mean around each other now—whereas with he and Cas, he often feels like they are often having multiple discussions at once—and that, in turn, leads to misunderstandings.

Sam goes to search the room for hex bags while Dean—just looking for something to do—pulls out his EMF reader. He's surprised when he gets a spike almost immediately. Maybe Luke decided to stick around after overdosing? But why would someone who chose to end his own life on earth suddenly change his mind and hold on?

Sam had looked over at the sound of the EMF in curiosity. Dean pulls out his notebook, writing a name followed by a question mark, "Maggie?", and flashes it at his brother. Luke's wife _had_ died before all the suspicious activity had occurred. It was possible that she became angry about her untimely passing and the forced separation it caused between her and her family. But would that grief twist her enough to hurt her husband and child and other people with strong connections? How would she have moved from location to location unless all the victims happened to pass on the same cursed object?

He looks at his watch and he hit number 2 on his speed dial. It is only 5:17 now, but there is no helping it. "Morning, Sunshine," he greets Cas, smiling at the ex-angel's answering groan. A few feet away, Sam smiles, too.

-oOo-

"We come bearing breakfast," Dean announces when they return to the motel an hour later to find Cas sitting at the desk, wearing his sleep clothes and Hellhound glasses.

"Thank you," the ex-angel says with such genuine gratitude that Dean loses himself for a minute before snapping back into focus and handing him his sausage and biscuit sandwich.

"What's with the new look?" he says, sitting at the end of Sammy's bed, since it's closer to Cas—simultaneously ignoring his brother's warnings not to get any crumbs on it.

"They help me see beyond the glamor. Look," he offers, and Sam takes the glasses from Cas's waiting hand, squinting.

"Is that…Italian?" he wonders, tucking a strand of his ridiculous hair behind his ear.

Cas nods. "It says 'Second Circle.'"

"Second circle of what?" Dean questions around a mouthful of food so it comes out as "S'nd cir o' wat?"

Cas shrugs one shoulder. "If I had to guess…of Hell."

-oOo-

"You're telling us that _Dante_ was a Prophet of the Lord."

"Yes," the ex-angel agrees, tilting his head, confused why Sam seems to find this so bewildering.

"But…But Lucifer wasn't in The Cage in Dante's _Inferno_. He—he was a _ladder_ that Dante had to climb to get to Purgatory which, by the way, is also _nothing_ like the real one two have described," Sam insists, having still barely touched his own breakfast sandwiches, even as Dean is finishing up his third.

"Crowley was only 300 years old when you knew him. Did you really think he was the first to try to take over and restructure Hell?"

"Yeah, Sam, what are you _thinking_?" Dean mocks, flashing him a shit-eating grin.

Cas casts bemused eyes in his direction. "I'm not saying that The Inferno is entirely accurate. The Winchester Gospels were written by God, Himself, and you too still managed to go off-script several times. Not to mention the translation issues that have popped up over the years. But the general structure of Hell he described was accurate to the time period."

"Okkaaay," Sam relents, reaching over for his laptop and pulling up a few research sites. "The second circle of hell was Lust, wasn't it? It was for people who got swept up in affairs that were a detriment to the greater good."

"Woah, woah, woah," Dean raises his hands in protest, thinking of Luke and Ricky and Tiffany and Bethany. "Please tell me this case didn't take a hard turn into incest after I just ate."

"Not at all," Cas promises. "This circle could better be described as "Obsessive Love"—the kind that makes you put one another first over the well-being of the world. Dante only interviewed the sexually-involved couples for his poem because—well, he was a man of specific interests, let us say."

"The loved ones in this part of Hell were blown around in a perpetual windstorm that symbolized the way they let themselves get swept up in each-other. The wind also served the added purpose of keeping the two people apart."

"Well, that certainly seems to fit with the facts we have so far," Sam sighs, his eyes scanning a webpage quickly.

"What about the EMF readings?" Dean points out, sipping coffee.

"I suppose it's possible it's just a coincidence. Maggie could be hanging around but not actively doing anything harmful," Sam muses, before letting out a sigh that is one of Dean's least-favorite noises. It's the one that means he's about to say something responsible, even though he doesn't want to. "Without any other family, Luke and Ricky will be automatically cremated within the next few days. But we should probably salt and burn her just in case."

Dean's back gives a twinge in premonition. Just because part of him never believed he'd get to middle age while hunting doesn't make him suddenly ecstatic to have to deal with fuckin' aches and pains. He wondered, idly, if John ever felt this way while dragging two boys across the country—especially without the knowledge of a memory foam mattress and awesome water pressure he could return to when it was all over.

"Fine. But if we're grave-robbing tonight, I'm gonna need a nap," Dean grumbles, mostly ignoring the eyes on his back as he shucks off his shirt and slides under the covers.

"Sweet dreams, Dean," he hears before he slips into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean hunches his shoulders against the cold as Sam and Cas take their turns digging. At least, with a new grave, the ground is soft. He sniffs the air, which smells rain-ready. _Yeah, hopefully, this won't take more than another half an hour._

"So, what else do we need for this summoning spell?" he speaks down toward the hole. Dean had been informed, upon waking from his nap, that the demon in charge of the second circle of hell was named Tempest—though any knowledge of her whereabouts had seemed to disappear around the time of the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't. Not that being gone from the record was the same thing as being _gone_ gone.

Now, the only way to know for sure if she's alive and involved requires a full moon and a crap ton of ingredients that read like a freakin' Hallmark card.

Cas pauses his work, cupping both hands over the top of his shovel. "We have most of the herbs we need. But we'll have to acquire baby's breath—the actual exhalation, not the plant—tears of grief, and a true lover's gift."

"Well, they say Amazon has everything, right?"

Sam snorts and gestures for Dean to take his place.

The youngest Winchester has all of his weight on his arms, about to haul himself up out of the ditch, when he is suddenly thrown out of the hole completely with a grunt.

"Where?!" Dean asks, aiming his shotgun full of rock salt while Cas starts digging again in earnest. He answers his own question when a flicker of smoke-colored light catches the corner of his eye. He fires, blowing it apart until it can materialize into anything resembling a person.

"Doing OK there, Sammy?"

"M'fine," his brother says, scrambling into a standing position and grabbing the second gun they had propped against a tombstone.

There is a low fire of adrenaline burning in Dean's veins but seeing Sam up and okay brings his heart almost back to rock steady. So, what if Maggie was a ghost? She'd only been dead a year so it's not like she'd be packing too many more punches. Spinning around in a slow circle, alert but not tense, he is increasingly sure that she's not the big bad they're after—just a loose thread caught in a much more complex spider's web.

"Dean, behind you!" Sam calls. Dean turns and automatically fires again.

Meanwhile, Cas seems to have hit pay dirt, he judges by the sound his shovel makes against the coffin. The ex-angel doesn't shout his discovery like a human would, but just works, quickly and undistractedly, to pry the lid open.

A weak force attempts to shove the recently dug-up earth back over Cas, but he swings his iron crowbar steadily and it seems to go away.

"Maggie?" Dean asks the air. "What do you think you're holding on for, huh? They're gone. They're both gone. And if you let us help you, you can be together with them again."

Cas is out of the grave and pouring gas over the bones while Sam waits with a lighter. And maybe Maggie heard him and finally understood or maybe she just doesn't have the strength to fight them anymore, but they light up her bones and the air goes still, and it's one of the most anti-climatic salt-and-burns Dean can ever remember in his life.

"Enjoy your Heaven," Cas whispers, kindly and perhaps a little sadly.

Sighing, Dean puts the safety on his gun.

"You bleeding?" he asks Sam and, automatically, his brother reaches a hand to the cut on his forehead.

"Superficial," he determines, wiping some of it away, though the wound just oozes up again.

"Let me see," Dean says, walking over to Sam, though he's not too worried about it.

Or at least he _wouldn't_ be if the space between them didn't suddenly feel fuckin' _dense,_ his whole body tensing up with his inability to move even one step closer.

"Sammy, come here," he barks, feeling a bit of his adrenaline return.

His little brother rolls his eyes. "Geez, Dean, I said it was…_Oh,_" he stops, coming across the same invisible wall about six feet from his destination.

Dean throws up his hands. "Perfect…Just perfect."

-oOo-

A few minutes later, they're all gathered around the Impala, wondering what the hell they're gonna do.

"Cas and I could jack a car—or hitchhike, I suppose," Sam says, tucking his hair behind his ear and giving Dean what looks dangerously close to puppy dog eyes, which just makes his frustration worse.

"Have we figured out why I'm the only Bubble Boy here?" he asks, switching his scowl between the two of them. Back in the graveyard, Cas had also tried approaching Dean, his already serious expression turning more so when he couldn't approach either.

Of course, they'd all acknowledged that this was a possibility of the case. But now that they are facing it, so many un-thought of scenarios come to mind. They won't be able to have Dean's back in a fight like normal. They won't be able to get to him if he's injured. And right now, most annoyingly, they can't all fit into one frickin' car—and it isn't like this town has many Uber drivers willing to pick people up from cemeteries at ass o'clock at night.

"Maybe you touched something—or someone—Cas and I didn't come in contact with?" Sam suggests, still with that pitying frown.

"OK, say we go with that," Dean mutters, tiredly. "That only narrows it down to a _million_ possibilities. Or, heck, it could be an _illness_ or someone cursing me specifically. But how come all the other cases so far have been pairs of people? Not this anti-love triangle whatever."

"_Well_…we said it was separating people and the one they loved the most. Guess you just care about us equally," his brother shrugs, nonchalantly. "I mean, considering some of the victims could be a few inches from each other and others had to sleep in separate bedrooms, it seems like this curse is meant to be—emotionally proportional?—I guess. And Cas and I are both stuck the same distance from you. Dean? _Dean?_"

And Dean should really nod or something; he doesn't want to freak Sammy out. But to be honest, he's a little freaked out himself. Because his whole life there's no one he's loved as much as his kid brother—_no-one_. That complete and utter devotion is part of who Dean is—and the idea that that somehow changed when he wasn't looking, that he has become someone who doesn't automatically put Sam first isn't something he can understand.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean gets back to the motel at about 3:00 that morning. In a very uncharacteristic move, he'd insisted that Sam and Cas take the Impala. After all, he argued, he had already gotten a snooze in earlier that afternoon, so he had more energy to hoof the five miles between the cemetery and their room. Sam had looked at him a little funny but had accepted the keys tossed in his direction before instructing a hesitating Cas to take shotgun.

Now, Dean stands in the doorway, looking at the scene laid before him. Sam had decided to switch beds and is now in the one Dean and Cas slept in the night before; after a minute, Dean realizes this is because if his younger brother remained in the one closest to the door, then the invisible wall wouldn't have allowed him inside. As it is, he's gonna have to slink along the very edges of the room if he wants to take a piss.

And then there's Cas…who, probably for the same reasons, is sleeping with Sam instead. The ex-angel's back is propped against the headboard, like he had been trying to wait up for him but hadn't been able to stop himself from drifting off. As a result, he wound up with his drooping head resting on Sam's shoulder.

It should be damn adorable. Dean should be whipping out his phone to take a picture to tease them with later. Well, tease _Sam_ with—Cas wouldn't understand. And OK, maybe Sam wouldn't care much either. So maybe that's why he doesn't. Or it could be because his stomach feels weird or just that he's really tired.

He climbs into his own bed, punching his pillow a few times to get it into the correct shape, before waiting for unconsciousness to overtake him.

-oOo-

Dean feels much better in the morning, thinking he probably just blew everything out of proportion.

He cares about Cas…So what? He knew that already. Knew that the angel's many deaths were some of the worst moments of his life—and that was saying something considering the amount of shit he'd had to deal with. He'd even _told_ Cas before that he loved him like a brother, like family, hadn't he? And it's not like he was lying, right?

And now that he was thinking about it, he _had_ sometimes put Sam in dangerous situations when they needed to rescue Cas—but that was because Sam needed Cas, too.

And then there was the shrug the youngest Winchester gave yesterday while explaining the situation—not surprised, not concerned. Dean was definitely just overthinking it.

Dean tears the lid off a plastic container of sweet-smelling maple syrup and dumps it into the Styrofoam box containing pancakes from the local diner. It was a little awkward to get breakfast from Sam this morning, a process which involved Sam placing it on the motel table, then leaving the room for Dean to grab it, only to come back inside. But since Dean isn't a touchy-feely person, he figures he won't really notice the curse otherwise. Well, until it tries to kill one of them.

"So, who do you think is supposed to end up biting it in this scenario? Me or one of you?" Dean asks, picking up a piece of bacon.

"Guess that's something we'll have to try to figure out today," Sam says, carefully cutting his egg white omelet with a plastic fork. "You're heading back to the coroner's, right? To see if Luke's ribs were marked also or if it was only Ricky's?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean says, reminded that they're splitting up for the day. Part of Sam's early morning errands had included picking up a rental car—a bright red Honda Civic that Dean would have absolutely no associations with. "But even if we figure out something from that, how are we going to check if there's anything on _our_ ribs? And really, how much damn writing room can ours have left? Didn't Cas scrawl all over our bones with Enochian already?"

"I actually tried to make my markings as succinct as possible," Cas says, emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of steam that smells warmer and fruitier than his normal calm-before-the-thunder scent. He's dressed in his old suit paints and white-collared shirt, carefully working on buttoning the sleeves. It would almost be a familiar look if his hair wasn't damp and dripping.

"Why not go to town? Sign your name? Write 'Property of Castiel' all up in here?" Dean says, obscenely rubbing his hand over his own chest and waggling his eyebrows.

Cas huffs a sigh of exasperation at Dean's antics. "I would never presume to call either your or Sam my property." His lips give the tiniest of quirks, a sign he thinks he is about to say something funny. "Although, for some, I suppose my handprint on your arm might have sent a similar message."

Dean snorts, "You know how hard it was explaining that damn thing to girls?"

"What, Dean?" Sam teases, lips curving to the left in a smile. "Didn't want to tell first dates that an angel 'gripped you tight and raised you from perdition'? Little too kinky for them?"

"No," Dean says, jabbing his fork in his brother's direction. "Now, stop confusing Cas." Indeed, the dark-haired man was standing with his head titled to the side as he considered their conversation.

Sam coughs to himself. "Uh…yeah…never mind, Cas."

Dean gets up and exiles himself to a corner of the room so that the former angel can scoot by the place that he had been, picking up his blue tie on the way. Dean usually is the one to help him tie it, always internally marveling that someone who had lived for thousands, if not millions, of years and who had near-perfect recall couldn't figure out a fairly simple knot. "Sammy, help him with that, would ya?" he says, turning to pick up his own suit jacket.

"Help him with what, Dean?"

The oldest Winchester turns around to find Cas finishing tugging up a perfectly-knotted tie. It wasn't even backwards or anything. The two of them look at each other for a minute before they both turn away at the same time. "Oh, uh…nothing. We should…ah…get this show on the road."

-oOo-

Several hours later, Dean is sitting by himself in a booth at the same diner they'd been frequenting all trip. He is just flipping out his phone to call Sam when the same cute waitress from before comes for his order. He squints at her nametag.

"Hi, _Amanda,_" he says. "Can I get a meatball sandwich?"

"Fries?"

"Sweet potato?"

"You got it," she says, having not written any of this down, but just spent the entire time looking at him. Yeah, he's still got it.

He's just about to try his brother again when he hears the bell jangle over the diner's door, only to see the Green Giant himself walk through, Cas following just a step behind. A waiter greets them and gestures in his direction, clearing asking if the two want to join their fellow FBI agent at his table, but Sam shakes his head—and the two are seated on the other side of the room.

Dean goes ahead and presses the button, watching Sam rifle through his suit jacket for his phone. "Hey, Bitch," he says. "How was digging through trashcans?"

"Mission disgustingly accomplished," Sam responds, reaching for his glass of water and sipping. They were supposed to stop by the local funeral home, presumably to ask the director some questions, but they'd also been hoping to score some used tissues containing "tears of grief." Dean had managed to snag Luke Alvez's wedding ring at the coroner's, which they figured counted as "true love's gift."

"Now all we need is someone to let a strange man get near their baby," Dean retorts, only belatedly glancing around him to see if anyone else could overhear.

"Smooth, Dean."

They briefly discuss his morning; Luke's ribs were unmarked so he doesn't have much. "Regroup after lunch?"

"Back at the motel?" Sam asks, raising his eyebrows. "Ah, yeah, sure—oh, wait, Dean, Cas wants to talk to you."

"I was actually thinking that Sam and I should inquire about another room," comes the familiar gruff voice.

"You guys looking to cuddle in private?" Dean questions, annoyed suddenly at the stiffness of his dress shirt and popping the button at the collar. Unlike Sam, who hadn't looked in his direction their entire conversation, he notices Cas staring directly at him. And as it turns out, the intensity of that particular too-blue gaze can still be felt at this distance.

"Cuddling is like hugging, yes?" Cas seems to ask Sam. Dean could see his brother choke a little around his gulp of water. "While hugging does have a pleasant effect on the body by helping it produce endorphins, from my interaction with you both, it seems like it is only usually allowed in times of great physical danger, so, hopefully there will be no need for any hugging."

"Wow, what's got your cheeks so red?" Amanda asks, balancing his plate of food. "Talking to your girl?"

"No, no girl. Just, uh, could I have some more coffee, please?" He sinks his face onto his hands as she walks away.

"OK, let's get back on track," he tells Cas over the phone. "Why do you want a separate room?"

"Well, with all the family members we've talked to so far, the separation distance becomes increasingly wider with time. Practically speaking, we might not be able to function in one room by now. And also…"

"Yes?"

"Part of the torture of the Second Circle was being able to see one another in pain, but without being able to do anything about it. And so far, all of the victims have followed the same pattern. Luke Alvez couldn't get Ricky out his crib in time to escape the fire. Thomas Haggerty asphyxiated feet away from his wife, who had medical training, knew how to do CPR, but couldn't reach him. And Tiffany said she tried to pull Bethany out of traffic but wasn't able to. I think that the demon plans these deaths…so that the loved ones have to watch."

Dean idly picks up a fry. Sets it back down. "So, you want us to avoid each-other altogether, in the hopes that she can't—or won't—try to gank us alone?"

Cas tilts his head. "I think it would be…prudent. At least until we're ready for the summoning ritual."

"Sure, I mean, that makes…sense."

They let a pause linger over the line. "Talk to you later, then, I guess, Cas?"

"Goodbye, Dean," the angel says and ends the call. Dean leaves the phone by his ear a little too long.

He eats the rest of his meal quickly, since it probably does seem a little strange to the wait staff that the three of them aren't sitting together after the last few days. And for the most part, he doesn't even look in their direction. But when he does, they both seem normal—which is good—easy with each-other. Probably nerding out about the paper-making practices of ancient Mesopotamia or something.

And when it's time to claim his check, Amanda uses it as an excuse to touch his hand…and, yes, there's her number written on it. And he supposes he has his room to himself tonight, if he wanted. But he's just not in the mood for it. I mean, normally, he is all for a fun, meaningless hook-up. But as he remembers her small, warm fingers on his wrist, some part of his brain says that the only reason he can touch her is because he doesn't care about her and that doesn't feel meaningless.


	5. Chapter 5

_God, it's late,_ Dean thinks, rubbing his eyes and then glancing over at the clock. Okay, so maybe it's only 7:42 in the evening, but it _feels_ late, the dark night outside pushing against motel curtains the color of rotten vegetables, making the room feel a bit claustrophobic.

He's just finished his check-in call with Sam. His brother had said that he and Cas were about to head out; he was going to teach the ex-angel how to play pool. Which, you know, Dean had been meaning to do for a while now, but it was good that Cas was getting a head-start.

He flips on the TV and is pleased to see a Dr. Sexy marathon on. Of course, the show has lost some of its appeal since they'd killed off the title character, but there are still some solid plots going on. This episode alternates between a cutting-edge heart surgery and the budding romance between Marco and an intern named Avi, who has just realized he's gay. The couple's talk about their future in light of Marco's acceptance to an out-of-state hospital residency program is cut short by a pretty intense make-out session. Dean looks over his shoulder, as if to make sure Sam isn't in the room to judge him. But of course, his brother isn't there. Neither is Cas, who would sometimes watch with him, rather than making him feel awkward about it.

And that gets him thinking about how Cas had, himself, been in doctor's scrubs today in order to sneak into the local hospital's nursery ward. Sam had sent him a picture with the caption, "Baby's breath, check." Actually, from the back, Marco sort of looked like Cas…which is really, _really_ something Dean doesn't want to think about as Avi's fingers card through his hair and push the other doctor backwards. He quickly turns off the TV.

Which leaves what to do exactly? Field strip his guns? Read the SparkNotes version of Dante's Inferno?

You know, screw that, since when is _Sam_ the fun one? He's got to get out of this room.

He drives around the entire town twice—but as far as he can tell, there's only one bar open and it's probably where his brother's at, so he's not allowed to go in. This whole thing is uncomfortably reminding him of when Sam was at Stanford, trying so hard to keep as much distance between his family and his new life as possible.

Sure, maybe, this time, it isn't his brother's choice to stay away. And, actually, Sam has made a point of contacting him multiple times throughout the day. But it itches at Dean the same way until he finds himself pulling into the parking lot of "Rattlesnake Pete's." He can smell the deep-fried cheese and booze from here.

Still, he doesn't go inside. He stares at his hands until he finds his cellphone in them.

"How's the pool game going?" he texts Sam.

Sam: Cas WAS beating the shit out of me.

Sam: But now I think he's had one too many beers.

OK, now Dean's really annoyed. Wasted Cas is, like, his third favorite version of Cas, _especially_ as a human.

"Better make sure no one takes advantage of him."

Sam: Don't worry. The only person Cas flirts with when he's drunk is you.

"Ha ha, Bitch."

Sam: It's only funny cuz it's true.

Sam: You could text him too, you know. I think he's noticed you've only been calling me.

Dean looks at that message for a long time, typing a few things out and then deleting them. Eventually, he settles on, "Maybe when he's sober." And even though he can't see his brother, Dean can imagine the younger Winchester wearing his fourth least-favorite bitchface.

Regardless, he can't go inside _now_, so he puts Baby in reverse and makes his way back to the motel.

He's switching out the car keys in his hand for the room key in his pocket when the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Instinctively, he twists around, pulling a gun from where it was nestled against his lower back.

"And here I thought you were looking forward to meeting me," says the silhouette of a woman. When she steps under the light of a nearby lamppost, he gets a better glimpse of her tall, sleek figure and dark hair, which moves restlessly about her shoulders despite the lack of wind.

"Oh, trust me, I am happy to see you, Tempest. Emphasis on the 'trigger'," he responds, cocking his weapon.

She raises a lone eyebrow. "And what, exactly, do you think those bullets are going to do to me?"

"Distract you while I do this," Dean smirks, pulling a laser pointer out of his pocket. The red lines that project from it form a fiery-looking devil's trap around her feet. As it turns out, drunken brainstorming sessions between himself, Sam, Cas, and Alternative-Universe Bobby could be damn productive. "Or did you think I was just a pretty face?"

"Not with your reputation. But I'm sure some demons have made that mistake and paid for it with their lives."

"Just a few—thousand."

A slow, indulgent smile grows across her face. "You know, I once heard Crowley say that he was the only one who didn't underestimate the Winchesters. But even he didn't try to understand what makes you and your brother what you are—what it is about the way your minds tick that leads to so many unlikely victories."

"Yeah, we're a real mystery, inside an enigma, wrapped in bacon."

She spreads her arms and he instantly tracks the movement with his gun, his heart beating fast from deep within the locked iron box where he stores all his emotions at times like these.

"Unlike Crowley, I _am_ curious about your thought process. I've already told you that that weapon is useless against me and you'll break the devil's trap trying to get close enough to stab me. So, what will your next move be?"

He hesitates. For just a second. Not because he doesn't know the answer—but because she clearly does, too. But eventually and slowly, he returns his gun under his shirt. By the time he has explained the situation to Sam, he can already hear the rumble of an engine turning over on the other end of the phone line.

"Introducing me to the family already? I'm honored."

"Guess I thought everything has been going so well so far. Might as well speed this relationship up." It's her damn _calm_ that disturbs him. Of course, Crowley and Meg could put up an air of nonchalance like you wouldn't believe—but this feels different. For someone whose name is that of a storm and whose hair and clothes seem caught up in a wind of her own making, her own body and nerves seem resolutely still. And while she's right that this laser pointer is more useful than a gun at the moment, it feels much less satisfying than a trigger would under his well-calloused fingers.

"So, you've talked to Crowley about us?" he says, eyebrows raised. "Funny thing is, he never mentioned you."

"And why would he do that? The King of the Crossroads was never fond of revealing any information he didn't absolutely have to. Nor were we what you would call friends."

"What, then? You were just invited to a couple of weekly board meetings?"

Her laugh sounds like rain against a window.

"More like his State of the Union addresses. Crowley liked to give a speech every year, going over his most recent accomplishments and explaining why he was the best fit to rule Hell." Dean snorts, determined to give him crap for that if he ever came back from the dead again. In the distance, but coming closer, is the sound of a speeding car.

"Looks like we're about to have company."

The older Winchester doesn't turn to look at his brother as the car's brakes are applied about 50 feet away, nor when the door opens, or when it is followed by the sound of heavy footsteps. But he does notice he hears only one set.

And sure enough, over Tempest's shoulder he sees one shadow that stands out slightly against the darkness. A shadow he guesses has dark hair and a tan trench coat and is hopefully still not drunk. The demon hadn't mentioned Cas so far, so perhaps she didn't know as much as she claimed.

Or so he thinks right before she says, "Sam. Castiel, I've been waiting for you." She raises her arm and a sudden wind knocks Dean sideways, flinging the laser pointer out of his grip. "After all, I wanted you to be able to say goodbye."

There is shouting and lightning and his heart has burst out of the box he keeps it trapped in as she waves him back and forth. Eventually, he feels her magic pull him toward her open embrace.

He struggles, vainly—struggles harder when he hears his name over and over, each time meaning something different. But even with his mouth full of the iron tang of blood from where he bit down on his tongue accidentally, unconsciousness starts edging out the corners of his vision until he can't fight it anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

If Castiel thought that his understanding of humans would be helped by becoming one, he was sorely mistaken. For example, right now, he is pacing back and forth across the length of the motel room in frustration. But what purpose does his body think that will serve? It's just a waste of the calories that he must so diligently replenish—a waste of the time that the restaurant staff or Dean has to spend preparing his food. He should be doing something—something _useful_—not wearing a hole in the carpet.

"Have you picked up a signal?" he almost growls as he starts the part of his circuit facing Sam.

"It's searching. Should have something in a few minutes," Sam sighs, resting his fingers after having spent the last few minutes typing furiously at the keyboard.

After Castiel had decided to give up his Grace, they all admitted that some…adjustments…had to be made to their hunting style. When Dean and Cas had one of their fights, the older Winchester liked to point out that the brothers had been hunting a long time before angel assistance—with the implication that they could do it again. They'd also _died_ several times—against less powerful opponents than what the world offered up now-a-days.

So, they had tried to think ahead as much as possible. Castiel had spent a couple of months donating Grace to glass vials every day—to be used in the case of future life-threatening emergencies. They had come up with several new gadgets, like the laser pointer, which had temporarily worked on Tempest. And they had all had GPS trackers implanted in their back molars—because even though the Winchesters sometimes wanted nothing more than to get the hell away from each other, it was far less often than the number of times they got kidnapped—and they wouldn't be able to just pray their location any more. A demon or a witch was also far less likely to remove their teeth than their cell phone.

The problem with this case wasn't necessarily _finding_ Dean but figuring out how to rescue him once they did. Castiel remembered, with stomach-turning detail, the dawning realization on Dean's face when he knew the demon had him. He remembered how he launched himself toward his friend—only to find that the distance separating them, once only about six feet, had grown to something closer to 50—far larger than any of the other family members had described.

So, what? They call in some other hunters to go retrieve him? People who, by definition, didn't care about Dean's fate? _Impossible._ He paces faster.

At last, they hear a quiet ding from Sam's laptop. "He's in an abandoned factory a few miles out of town," he informs the ex-angel, jotting the location down on a pad, before running a hand through his hair. "You know if Dean were here right now, he'd probably say something about how this is the one time 'Souless Sam' would be useful." The little laugh he gives is the opposite of what laughs should be.

Cas pauses mid-step. A strange cocktail of hope and guilt stirs in his chest.

-oOo-

He'd known that there was something wrong with Sam's logic back at the grave site.

_"Well…we said it was separating people and the one they loved the most. Guess you just care about us equally," Sam had shrugged, nonchalantly. "I mean, considering some of the victims could be a few inches from each other and others had to sleep in separate bedrooms, it seems like this curse is meant to be—emotionally proportional?—I guess. And Cas and I are both stuck the same distance from you. Dean? Dean?"_

He'd had to keep on repeating his brother's name because deep down inside Dean had felt how _wrong_ that statement was.

Castiel knew. He had cradled this soul in the depths of hell, had put this body back together where it had been torn to shreds. And while time and experience had shown him that he would never fully understand this particularly infuriating, compassionate, brave, self-sabotaging, absolutely _beautiful_ human, he did know that he loved his brother with every piece of himself—every fiber of his being.

Nothing, not the entire universe, would ever compare to that—and Cas would never dare try. He loved how much Dean loved Sam. And to be able to count himself their friend…even their family…that was more than he deserved after some of the things he'd done.

That didn't change the fact that the spell couldn't be measuring Dean's emotional connection to Cas—it just couldn't. Which meant that he _and_ Dean had been cursed. Dean was separated from Sam because he loved his brother most…and Cas was separated from Dean because he had fallen for him in every possible sense of the word a long, long time ago.

He'd meant to tell Dean—to wipe that look of confusion and anguish off his face outside the cemetery. But then the older Winchester was walking away with his hands in his pockets, head down, and he didn't really want to have to confess all of this in front of Sam anyway. Then, he had tried to wait up to talk to Dean when he came back to the motel, but sleep tends to overtake him easily as a human.

By the time he woke up in the morning, his friend had seemed to feel better about the situation—and he thought (though it shames him now) that maybe he could keep his secret…secret. He reasoned that his revelation might have only made things more awkward for Dean if he knew about the constant longing in Castiel's chest—a heart-gripping sensation that was far from brotherly.

But now, he had no choice. _Now,_ this was about saving Dean's life. Castiel's feelings didn't matter.

"Oh, Cas," Sam breathes, once he had explained all this, his shoulders back and straight and his face as soldierly as possible. "I really don't think…The last time you died, Dean was an absolute _wreck_…"

Cas shakes his head. He has seen Dean grieve—Charlie and Kevin and so many others. He always took it hard, because that's the kind of person Dean _was_. It wasn't the _same_.

"If I'm right about this—and we can come up with a potion to damper my emotions, it means that the barrier will disappear. I will be able to get to Dean."

"Hold up, hold up," Sam says, turning to face him fully. His brown eyes look wide and tired—a softer version of what Dean calls 'puppy dog eyes'—and Cas has noticed that it is these kinds of expressions which make him look so different from John Winchester, who he inherited those eyes from. "First off, I still think you are way off base about Dean's feelings. But even if you're not, doesn't this sound like the kind of plan that leads to more problems down the road? I mean, we've dealt with more unfeeling versions of you before—and, no offense, but how can you be sure that you would _want_ to help Dean if you turn into a robot? What if you go all Godstiel again?"

Cas's lips tighten at that reminder, but he forges on resolutely. "I do not have powers anymore so becoming God is highly unlikely. Furthermore, when you were 'Soulless Sam,' you had logical reasons for helping Dean even if there wasn't the emotion behind it, the same as I will have. And we can make the effects of the potion temporary—it'll last only an hour or so before I'll revert back to normal."

The seconds on the clock seem to tick so much slower than the pulse he can feel in his veins—and the more he concentrates on that steady beating, the more it seems to jump under his skin. He becomes aware of his body's other responses—the way his lungs pump air in and out, the way his palms sweat, the ache of a bruise on his shin that he got two weeks ago—and it is all a terrible reminder of how fragile humanity is. Even the strongest among them like Dean.

"This…is a terrible idea," Sam says, at last.

"I know."

He sighs, flipping to a new page in his notebook. "OK, we'll put something together. But not as Plan A or Plan B. We're going to _sit_ here and come up with methods of ganking that bitch. We're only pulling out this potion on location if—and only if—we're dead out of options."

"And then," he adds, "you'll be in charge of rescuing me from Dean. Because if he finds out I even considered this, he's going to try to kill me himself."

Cas tilts his head to the side, considering. "I am amenable to that."


	7. Chapter 7

_Head. Hurts._ Dean thinks, internally wincing at how raw his throat is as he swallows. Everything between his ears feels like it is stuffed with cotton—but he must have some wits about him because he doesn't open his eyes, but lets his other senses explore the area first. While there is definitely dust in the air, there is also something richer underneath that he practically tastes on the tip of his tongue—motor oil, he guesses. The ground beneath his feet feels smooth and solid and vaguely cold even through his shoes—concrete floor, then. He's probably in a factory or warehouse.

Somehow, he doubts the breeze on his face is just innocent wind reaching him through a broken window.

After doing a mental assessment of his injuries—bruised rib, dislodged shoulder, various bumps and scrapes—he figures that there is nothing more he can do while pretending to be unconscious. "The staring is really messing with my beauty sleep, you know," he announces as he lets his eyelids flutter open.

Tempest is seated on a stack of boxes like it is a throne. Her eyes are smiling when they catch his, but she doesn't respond.

"Can't help but notice you kept me alive…," Dean flexes and unflexes his fingers, trying to see how much movement his hands have against the invisible bonds tying his wrists to his chair. There isn't much give, but he still manages to lean forward, conspiratorially. "I'll let you in on a little secret—that was a mistake."

She shrugs her pale shoulders. "As long as you're near, your brother and angel won't be able to touch me—any more than they can touch you." With that, he feels a particularly bold gust of air slide across his arm underneath the flannel, making his hair stand on end as he fights a shudder. "Now, there are plenty of demons who can snap a neck with a flick of their wrist, rot internal organs with a look, read a person's fears and turn them into realties…but what wouldn't they give for what I have _right now_? Guaranteed Winchester repellent."

"Gonna sell me off to the highest bidder then?" He cocks his head to the side, which is definitely not something he learned from Cas. "Cause, correct me if I'm wrong, it sorta seemed like you wanted me all to yourself."

Tempest's lips curl into a smile. "I think I would have liked having you by my side for all eternity. You'd make things…infinitely more interesting. And you're right, that _was_ the plan."

"But…what? Decided you couldn't handle all of this," he asks, suggestively.

"Remarkable though you may be, Dean, I could handle you without trouble. So could most of the things that hide in the dark."

He snorts his disbelief.

"But it's not just about you, is it?"

"I'll admit, I didn't fully understand that at first. I decided to separate you from your brother just as a divide and conquer tactic. But when the curse struck, I could feel it—everything that makes up your connection to Sam. Love and fondness, obligation and guilt—an almost impossible amount of it…."

Her eyes light. "So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is not just one, but _two_ people that your soul belongs to," she says, smiling with widening enthusiasm and he tenses—tenses in a different way than when he realized this for himself.

Because it's one thing to freak out over the fact that Cas means more to him than he ever imagined another person could—and entirely another for a _demon_ to know it—to know that the ex-angel was more than just a weak spot in the Winchester armor, but something that could cause him to fall apart altogether. "The make-up of it is a little different," Tempest continues, unconcernedly. "but the result is just as potent, just as all-encompassing…. Most demons can't even _conceive_ of the power in that kind of profound bond."

"But you can?" Dean asks, ignoring her choice of wording to make his voice purposefully dismissive.

"Back in the Second Circle of Hell, Cleopatra's and Antony's love was enough to create a storm equivalent to a Category 5 Hurricane. I don't underestimate that ferocity the way my brethren do—the way I'm guessing even you do, sometimes."

"Look, this has been real fun," Dean interrupts, pulling his thoughts away as he tries looking around for some tool he could use to his advantage. He has a thin razor blade inserted in the sole of one of his boots, but he wouldn't be able to get to it with her looking at him. Besides, what were the chances it would do much against air handcuffs anyway? "I mean it. I'm always real fond of a Bad Guy monologue. But was there a point you were planning on getting to sometime this century?"

Wind slaps him hard across the face, stinging the inside of his cheek—and while it hurts, it also causes him to relax just a little. Because even if she'd gotten to him, he'd gotten to her also. A voice in the back of his head that sounds like John says, _If it bleeds, you can kill it._ But there are different ways of bleeding.

"It _means,_ if I keep you alive as a pet, they'll find some way to rescue you. If I kill you, they won't stop until they kill _me._ They won't just go to the ends of the earth for you—they'll go to Heaven, Hell, Purgatory... It's why you three always succeed in the end. You never give up on one another. The only way I'm going to rule Hell safely is if you are all destroyed at once."

"So, I'm bait," Dean says with an eye roll, and making a point of getting comfortable in his chair like he's at home there. "Couldn't you have just _said_ that?"

"Perhaps," her lips quirk, though whether with amusement or annoyance is unclear. "But then, how on earth would we pass the time waiting?"

As if to prove her point, a silence envelops them. It seems absolute at first, but after a few minutes, Dean can pick up a background noise like static. He does sort of wish that she'd keep on talking—now that they are in the part of the action movie no one ever sees. The time when the helpless victim sits around for hours with sweat he can't wipe off his own face and an itchy-as-all-hell spot on his foot he can't scratch.

He feels, more than sees, the sky grow darker outside as the hours pass, which can only mean that a full day has passed since he was taken.

"So, if you believe all that "power of love" crap you were spouting off earlier—and not gonna lie, it makes you sound like you're one Santa short of a straight-to-TV Christmas movie—what makes you think a trap will work anyway?" he asks, only slightly annoyed at himself for speaking.

"Because for now, at least, your precious bond is working against you. If I ran off with you, I have no doubt they'd figure out a work-around eventually, but you're right here—oh so close to them and yet so far. They'll move quickly, think irrationally."

Somewhere out there, Chuck is loving this timing. Because suddenly, in the distance, Dean hears a rough, familiar growling. "Plus," Tempest says, as other barks can be heard—the sound already biting enough even before the creatures have their jaws around something's neck-"I have a little help from some friends."

"Dean!" comes his brother's yell from outside, though it is quickly drowned out by snarling. There is a scuffle followed by a few whimpers. Dean doesn't bother calling back to Sam because he wants to make sure he hears everything that is going on—just in case.

"Oh, don't worry," Tempest tells him, getting up and touching him for the first time with her fingers. She feels like what happens when you stick your finger into an electric socket. "I'll make sure you have a front row seat to this. After all, watching is the best part." With that, his chair is suddenly blown by a large gust of wind, causing it to shoot up like a rocket.

He temporarily forgets about the fight outside—not knowing whether to stare down in horror at the ground rapidly getting farther and farther away—or upward at the approaching and _very_ solid-looking ceiling—when suddenly, the concrete above him blasts apart, revealing a cloud-covered night sky and full moon. OK, OK, he very much doesn't like this, he thinks, white knuckling the arms of his chair for dear life.

He and Tempest continue rising high, high above the factory—and now the ground is definitely the most concerning thing—as is the fact that he can see the top of Sammy's _head_, a sight he hasn't been familiar with since he was a junior in high school. Cas is there, back-to-back with his brother, spinning his angel blade around for a better grip.

_You two geniuses better have a smarter plan than this,_ he thinks. After all, the situation doesn't look good. But he recognizes the tough set of Sam's shoulders and the unconsciously graceful twirl of Cas's body as he thrusts in and out of an invisible horde, and he figures that, if he were an ankle-biter from Hell, he wouldn't be feeling super confident either.

"A little help here!" Sam calls out to Cas, slashing with the demon blade. _So much for a plan,_ Dean thinks, followed by a stream of expletives.

And yet, when the answer comes, it's not from the trench-coated man beside him—but makes itself known with a sound like a whip cracking right before a blood stain appears by his brother's feet. Dean wants to turn around, but he can't—can't see who is behind him, but the sniper rifle goes off again and there is another dead Hellhound and Hellhound, then another. Must be angel blade shards in the bullets.

Of course, he doesn't need to be able to see the shooter to recognize Donna's cheerful, "Whoop!" He's guessing it's coming from the top floor of a nearby building and that the cross-shots fired from yet another direction are Jody.

"Oh, you are so dead," Dean offers, helpfully, to Tempest, although if any gunfire is being directed in her direction, she is batting it away easily using the same winds that are keeping them both aloft. For the first time ever, she looks _furious._ And that's when the lightning starts.

Nearby trees begin shaking and the Impala and Jody's car are shifting, restlessly, on their wheels. Both Sam and Cas get immediately swept off their feet, Cas's coat swirling around him dramatically—and he's gotta figure that any Hellhounds left alive are pretty much down for the count now.

Dean counts his breaths, waiting for his brother and the ex-angel to get up, having had no clue where Donna and Jody were to begin with. By _15…16…_ Sam is up on his knees, holding his head, because of course he's probably got another goddamn concussion.

He says something to Cas, gesturing in Dean's direction. Cas pats the pockets of his coat, frantically, before pulling out something that glints like glass—a vial? Sam shakes his head, emphatically, motioning towards Dean again.

Tempest throws another bolt of lighting that Sam and Cas just barely dodge—and this time, when his brother looks at the angel, he nods his head.

And then, everything happens at once. Cas is breaking the vial on the ground, quickly muttering words that the wind steals before Dean can hear them and Tempest suddenly looks extremely pained. And then, abruptly, the demon isn't at his side anymore. She is in front of Cas and his brother—with one demon knife shoved into her neck and an angel blade through her stomach.

It only takes a second for blood to begin blooming over her dress, but that is one less second Dean has before he is falling, falling—three stories at least—and screaming, screaming, except his ears aren't working—and _fuck, shit_—it's not like there's _grass_ below him. And when he sees Donna and Jody shoving a fuckin' overflowing dumpster underneath his accelerating body, he really is not sure what that's gonna do—but it's not like he has a _choice,_ right?

This time, he welcomes the blackness that means he won't have to hear the sick crunch of his own bones.


	8. Chapter 8

_We should really have figured out a better place to do this,_ Dean thinks, as he and Sam struggle to swap spaces on the stairs leading out of the bunker so they can both give Donna and Jody goodbye hugs. "Take care of yourself," Jody requests against the side of his neck.

"You too," he murmurs, even though it is an impossible promise for a hunter.

After all, it's only been a week since he'd broken both his legs and punctured his lung landing in a dumpster in Idaho. A week since he'd felt the icy hot thrum of grace stitching his beat-up and unconscious body back together—the rush of it so familiar that he'd woken up asking "Cas?"

"I'm right here, Dean," the ex-angel had said, squeezing his hand—and then he and his brother had arms on either side of him, lifting him up, so close that Sam had wrinkled his nose at how absolutely _ripe_ he smelled—and Dean had crushed them both tighter to him just because he _could_.

_A lot can change in a week._

"We'll visit Sioux Falls soon," Sam tells the women's retreating figures. "Say hi to all the girls for us!" And then, the heavy door slams back into place, hiding their parting waves and the only source of natural light the bunker ever sees.

Dean is already halfway to his room, determined to continue his Spanish soap opera binge, when he hears his brother chase after him. "We gotta talk," Sam says in the tone he might have used if he'd ever gotten to be a parent.

"Do we now?" He throws himself onto his own bed, pointedly reaching for his headphones.

All the tension in Sam's forehead gathers in the space between his eyebrows, a look Charlie once said made him look like a Klingon while Dean snorted around a mouthful of Cheese-puffs. "Why have you been avoiding Cas? Is it some guilt-complex thing because we used some of his reserve grace to heal you?"

OK, so he hadn't _loved_ that—but he is practical enough to realize that those kinds of injuries would have taken him out of the hunting game for months, if not forever, so he isn't looking that particular gift horse in the mouth too closely. "I haven't been avoiding anybody," he argues, instead, rolling his eyes to prove the ridiculousness of Sam's comment. "We just had lunch together, like, three hours ago."

"During which you sat in the farthest possible seat from Cas and didn't say anything that wasn't a direct answer to a question."

Dean knows he didn't, knows he's been avoiding being in the angel's personal space—and vice versa—as if the curse is still active. It just feels weird all of a sudden—to grip the angel's shoulder in passing or to tug him by the sleeve of his trench coat to direct him where he wants Cas to go.

He doesn't want to think about _why_—it's like a donated organ that his body is determined to reject—but if there's an even worse case scenario, it's talking it over with _Sam_. "Geez. You're freakin' out—why exactly? 'Cause I'm not a touchy-feely person? 'Cause we're not sharing the same air?"

"Honestly, _yes._ I thought it was awkward watching you two stare at each other all the time, but it's been going on for so many years now, it's almost weirder when you stop."

Dean scowls at his brother.

"I'm getting sick and tired of that joke, you know. Cas and I are _not_ a couple in case you and every angel, demon, and fanfiction writer in the world has forgotten."

"You _act_ like one," Sam snorts, running his fingers through his hair.

"How?!" Dean demands, throwing his headphones back on the desk hard enough that his few framed photos fall to the ground with the dull thump of plastic. "I haven't gotten anywhere the fuck near him for days! _How_ can I be acting like it?!"

Sam freezes. Dean freezes—his mind replaying what he said over and over again when he just wants to find the goddamn delete button.

"Dean…?"

He jabs his finger in his brother's direction. "No!"

"I think…"

"Shut up right now, Sammy!"

Not that him making a puppy dog face is any better. Where can Dean go? This place is as big as an army base—and yet, three people manage to fill it up to the point of claustrophobia sometimes. His room is where he is supposed to have privacy. He makes to step around his brother, who moves in sync with him to block the door.

"Look, Dean, Cas and I had a conversation when we were trying to figure out how to rescue you from Tempest."

"A _conversation_-" he repeats.

Sam nods, almost apologetically. "He thought that—well, he thought a lot of things—but he believed that the way the curse played out bothered you. That, in your mind, it might not be OK to care about anyone else the way you care about me."

"You'll always be my #1, Sammy," his response is automatic and absolute, and it doesn't matter if his brother is looking at him with almost-disappointment for saying it. It's the truth.

"OK, I definitely want to get back to that later. But for now, I have to ask. _Is_ that what's bothering you—that you think of Cas like another brother?" His voice gets whisper-like, but the bunker—usually full of background hums from the generators—seems to grow quiet and waiting in response. "Or is it…?"

_What?_ Dean thinks, almost impatiently—the way he felt waiting for his dad to come home any minute or for a monster to attack or a plane to take off.

"Because you don't think about him in that way at all?"

-oOo-

He catches the punching bag Cas is walloping, after finding the ex-angel in the bunker gym. It's still strange seeing him there—trying to maintain the vessel Jimmy Novak left behind now that he doesn't have grace to sustain it. Stranger still to see him in sweats and a dark-blue T-shirt, his hair darker than normal with perspiration.

"Dean," he blinks with surprise and even the hint of a frown, which means he should probably make up some excuse, run back to his room, and drink until he forgets this entire day. Except Sam is probably hovering somewhere nearby to eavesdrop—and even if he isn't, he'll press Dean about this later—just because he's on a crusade to make him happy or some shit. He's pretty sure he's going to be nauseous instead.

"Did you need me for something?" Cas questions, unwrapping his knuckles, and that's when Dean realizes he's still hugging the punching bag tightly to his chest.

He lets it go, wracking his mind for something to say. "Uh…sparring. You want someone to train with?"

"You're asking to…?" the ex-angel tilts his head to the side, gesturing to the padding laid out in the middle of the floor and frowning further. Dean nods. "With me?" Cas clarifies. Dean nods again. "Sure."

They walk over to the area together, arranging themselves at opposite ends of the mat, not making any moves to begin. Dean wipes his hands on his pants, idly thinking that he shouldn't be doing this in jeans, but still they keep to a holding pattern.

Finally, Cass huffs, a warning in the sound. Dean knows he's about to say something—apologize probably because he'll have decided Dean acting weird is _his_ fault. So, to stop those words more than anything else, he attempts a punch.

Cas dodges it easily, grabbing Dean's arm where it shot past his ear and twisting it behind Dean at about belt-level. For just a second, time stops. After a whole week of not touching, this seems so close and personal—the warmth of Cas' body, the feeling of his heart pounding against his back.

Instincts kick in then. Dean uses his free arm to elbow back at Cas's gut. It gives him enough opportunity to escape his grip and face the ex-angel again, but doesn't help him avoid the three swift kicks delivered to his stomach—an obvious clue that Cas's recent devotion to martial arts training and yoga is serving him better than Dean's bar-brawl fighting education.

And yet, Dean inexplicably feels lighter. He's been accused of being the kind of person who acts without thinking—and this last week of sitting around, waiting, _not_ acting has been harder on him than he realized. This—the adrenaline pumping through his veins—is something he can deal with. And, as badass as Cas is, he figures he can still show him a thing or two, especially with another voice reminding Dean that, "_He has this weakness."_

Instantly, he drops his defensive stance, hand over the bruises he can feel forming on his side as his face pinches with pain. He also moans, wondering if that might be overkill. And yet, in seconds, he feels Cas approaching him, a worried "Dean?" reaching him before a gentle hand covers his own where it rests on his stomach.

Dean grins, sweeping out his leg to get Cas's out from under him, until the ex-angel is flat on his back on the mat. Dean follows him down, pinning him at the shoulders and hips, restraining both his hands with one of his own.

They look at each other.

"So, I, um…" Dean begins, feeling his face flush. "Sorta wanted to talk to you about something."

"Like this?" Cas asks, disbelievingly, squirming a bit to prove his point and Dean tightens his grip to—_please, God_—stop him. Cas goes instantly, unnaturally still—and in the silence that is left, _thoughts_ suddenly spring to mind—enough of them that there is no way that he hasn't had them before, no matter how hard he pushed them down afterward.

Dean clears his throat. "Ah…So Sam was telling me that, nghh, uh…" He really hopes someday that this whole situation feels normal enough that he can make an "Is that your angel blade or mine?" joke but for right now, Cas _breathing_ is causing enough friction to prove to him that, OK, yes, his body does want this, even though his brain keeps changing its mind every few seconds—saying everything from _maybe you just haven't gotten laid in a while _to _go get 'em, tiger yeah _to _he's your best friend, genius_ to _you're so going to hell (again) for this_.

"OK…you're right. Standing, standing is a good idea first," Dean mutters, rolling off the other man and popping to his feet, purposefully keeping his back turned to Cas for a few moments so they can figure themselves out.

"Right, so, yeah, Sam said that…"

"I'm guessing by how hard this is for you to get out that it is something involving feelings…," Cas deadpans, but there is an almost unnoticeable tightness around his eyes that matches his grip on his water bottle.

"Well, yeah…"

"You wish to discuss _my_ feelings…for you."

"You have some, right?" Dean asks, only looking at the other man in his peripheral vision, scrubbing the hair at the base of his neck.

"That shouldn't be a revelation, Dean. I think I've both shown and told you enough times that you are…exceedingly important to me. And that's why the curse affected me as well. But that doesn't have to _change_ anything-" For a fairly strong guy who is only an inch or two shorter than Dean, Cas has a way of making himself smaller, especially when he's stressed, the lines of his shoulders coming into his torso just a little bit more, his head ducking down slightly.

"You're wrong," Dean cuts him off because this whole situation is reminding him of what Cas looked like when Dean kicked him out of the bunker all of those years ago and it's already a face that haunts his sleep sometimes.

And yet, speaking up seems to just make it worse. He thinks back over what he just said and winces. "I meant, you're wrong about being cursed. Tempest said that—that it was all me."

Cas blinks. Several times in a row. And each time, there is a slightly different expression in his eyes when he opens them again.

"You know I woulda kicked both your asses so hard if you had used that potion of yours, right?" Dean points out, just for something to say, but there is a hint of genuine anger there. At least, it's less than there was thirty minutes ago when Sam had filled him in on that part of the plan. Instead, they'd used the summoning spell that they had been working on for days to bring Tempest from Dean's side to theirs so they could stab her.

"You…?" Cas's voice is full of wonder. He takes an unthinking step towards Dean, but then abruptly stops.

_OK, here it is. Moment of truth._

"I'm gonna mess this up," he tells the angel. "Sometime, and probably soon, I'm gonna have a big gay freak-out and probably say something incredibly stupid, because that's who I am. I'm sorry. You don't deserve to put up with any of it. But I've seen you put up with demon me and Mark of Cain me and the dick me from that future Zachariah took me to and for some reason, you still seem to be sticking around for more…so I'm hoping you'll stick with me through this, too.

"Because I can't lose you. I've done it before—and what I do when you're gone…it's not exactly called living."

His voice goes slightly hysterical. "I'm not even sure how you did it, man. How you went from being that winged dickbag who pulled my ass out of hell to my best friend to…well, you know. You _gotta_ know. Even if I can't say it. So, anyway, this is me. Taking one step forward." And Dean at last closes the distance that Cas had left between them, resting one hand slightly above the angel's hip. "Asking you to bear with me when I inevitably take two steps back."

He should be out-of-his-mind worried right now with the few seconds of silence that follow, but the magnet pulling him towards Cas's eyes is incredibly strong at the moment and he knows—has probably always known—the way he is looking at him now.

And then, suddenly, his mouth is swallowing the sound of his own name as warm, chapped lips cover his—and he _is_ freaking out, but he's also tangling his hands in Cas's hair, pulling slightly, and moaning in a frankly embarrassing way. He's the one licking against Cas's bottom lip, asking permission, and pulling even tighter on his hair when he tastes like honey and cinnamon toothpaste.

God, this feeling—it's too big and too much for a human to handle, just like seeing an angel's true face makes their eyes burn and hearing their voice makes their ears ring—but just when he thinks he can't take it anymore, Cas shudders under his hands or gasps against him and he pushes closer to what must surely kill him because it would also be painful not to.

They're moving—drifting towards the gym's back wall until Cas is slammed against it. But in their surprise, Cas's lips just travel from his mouth to his neck and suddenly, he stops thinking about what they're doing or how he's feeling about it—because he's too busy _doing_ and _feeling_.

Which is probably why it takes a few minutes for him to hear the loud throat clearing behind him.

"Yes, Sammy?" he grits out, back still to his brother. Cas's poker face is a little less impressive now that he can't stop his cheeks from flushing pink.

"While I'm happy that you two have seemed to, uh, have worked out your differences, may I recommend a room that has a door?"

"Put it in the suggestion box. Then get. Out."

There is the quick shuffle of feet. But even though it only takes Sam a few seconds to leave the room, the mood has shifted—and Dean's well on the way to a panic attack that might involve driving away in the Impala and not coming back for a week. And he doesn't know what the fuck is wrong with him—_"Good things do happen, Dean." "Not in my experience."_—but he can feel the denials building up on his lips, ready to come pouring out.

"Dean?" Cas asks.

"Yeah?" He pleads with himself to not say more than that—not to say something he regrets.

"I am glad I'm no longer an angel or I might have had to smite your brother right then."

And it's so unexpected that Dean has to smile. Then, suddenly, Cas is grinning, too, in a way he never would have when they first met—and he thinks, _Maybe_. Maybe this thing between them is a mistake, maybe even the end of the world as he knows it. But it wouldn't be the first time that they faced that and come out on the other side—together.


End file.
